fragments of then, now & tomorrow

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Set 2: prompts taken from 40baisers (livejournal)

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025. worthwhile

Karin did not care if Sasuke kept to himself most of the time. She was not with him to hear him talk (though if he did, she surely won't be one to complain), not when she could always hear everything he thought loud and clear in his silence and sense everything he felt in the flow of his chakra.

For that reason, every moment spent by his side was worthwhile.

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002. blurry

Bloodlust spills all over his scruples, smearing everything it comes across until the line between guilty and innocent gets blurred to the point he loses himself and his boundaries. But his sight remains clear, and so her betrayed face engraves itself into the forsaken part of his heart; the one that would not be beating again any time soon.

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037. that which is lost

"Karin, track—" he stops himself with a start, realizing only too late that he was talking to thin air. Karin was not there anymore. She would never be there again.

He had made sure of that.

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024. paying dues

He looks up at her, droplets of rain dripping down her hair and onto his cheeks, sliding down and wiping away the trails of blood that had leaked from his eyes and down his chin. She is struggling to keep a hold of herself, he knows. Fighting to remain calm and composed and help him stay alive—as she always had. As she probably always would.

"I'm sorry,"

He breathes out, and Karin stops unzipping down her blouse and gives him a startled look.

"I'm sorry,"

He repeats, more strongly this time. And as he sees the way her defenses crumble and traitorous tears gather in the corners of her eyes, Sasuke thinks that he won't mind repeating himself over and over.

At least until he can forgive himself, just like she had forgiven him.

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015. childhood scars (post series)

Karin's body is flawed and tarnished. She tries to hide this behind her long sleeves, high-collar and long stockings; but these amount to nothing as he takes her in his arms for the first time and her scars are laid bare for him to see. Teeth-marks running all over the tender skin of her arms, chest and legs, so much so that there were barely any remains of skin left unharmed. Karin flinches despite herself; the sight was disgusting, she knew. She hid them for a reason.

And Sasuke was finally realizing the real extent of it, and he—he carefully takes her wrist to his lips and kisses the inside of it, taking Karin's breath away as he repeated the motion all over her arms, laying kisses across her skin as if it were immaculate silk.

And then he falls to his knees, and as his lips lay on her thighs—and trace up and up, into the sensible parts that Karin had not let anyone touch before, Karin arches her head back and loses her breath for entirely different reasons.

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fragments of then, now & tomorrow

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Set 3: prompts taken from 30romances (livejournal) - PART1

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6. Soooo not funny! ; Sarcasm

"Well, if Karin dislikes me so much she can just leave, right? Who needs her? Juugo's birds can do the job, anyway."

"Suigetsu,"

"What? Are you telling me I'm not right? Come on, Sasuke," Suigetsu taunts, smirking, and Sasuke gives him a long, unreadable look before going back to analyzing the map they had acquired.

"Karin isn't going anywhere. I told you, I need her."

Suigetsu snorts. "Puh-lease Sasuke, she's a total bitch! She's more trouble than she's worth!"

"If you dislike Karin so much, you can just leave."

The smirk melts down Suigetsu's face and he frowns, crossing his arms.

"Not funny, Sasuke."

"I wasn't trying to be."

Well, damn him.

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33. Cold hands

"Sasuke, here is the map you wanted," she says, and as he reaches out to take it their fingers brush.

Her hands are cold.

"What are you—?"

"You're cold, Karin," Sasuke states blandly, his expression not shifting in the slightest, "I need you to be at the top of your game tomorrow, so don't get sick."

Karin hesitates but then hastily looks away, a light blush coloring her otherwise pale cheeks as she reaches out to secure the cloak he had just placed on her. "W-what about you? Won't you be cold like that?"

Sasuke, now cloak-less, simply shrugs nonchalantly before walking away. "It won't make a difference."

I always am.

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33. Perfume

Sasuke looks up, startled, as a cloak is carelessly thrown at him. He finds Karin looking at him, but as soon as their eyes met she turns sideways and all he can see is her profile, her nose stuck up in the air.

"It's your turn to be on the look-out and it's cold outside, so have it back."

He sees no point in arguing, "Right."

Karin says nothing else, does not even take a glance at him as he stands up and heads to the mouth of the cave where they and the rest of Taka were resting for the night. However, that changes once he makes his way past her.

"Thanks,"

She murmurs, and Sasuke almost halts. Almost.

Instead, he goes on and pretends to not have heard—just like Karin would pretend to not have said anything at all.

Once outside, with his cloak back on its rightful place, Sasuke notices something that makes him stop and stare down at the cloth with minor surprise.

It smelled like Karin.

It felt… warmer.

Not at all like his own.

Sasuke says nothing about it to her the next day, but Karin is aware all the same.

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9. Rush ; Thrill ; Exhilaration

There is a thrill of exhilaration rushing up her arm and through her chakra system, reaching her bosom and traveling downwards, downwards, setting on fire sensitive parts of her anatomy as Sasuke's teeth sank deeper into her skin.

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3. Banter

"Suigetsu," Sasuke warns, low and menacing, and Suigetsu feels tempted to pull his hair out or just cut him—and her, too—with his sword once and for all.

Sure, Sasuke would avoid the attack and would make sure Karin came out unharmed, too—but it would be satisfying to at least try.

If only to erase the satisfied and mocking smirk that Karin was giving him right then, still holding him by the neck of his shirt.

Bitch, he mouths. Go die in a fire. And Karin's eyes narrow and she pulls her fist back only to be stopped by Sasuke's voice.

"Suigetsu."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it."

Fuck them all.

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15. Take a hint ; Scram!

"Sasuke," Karin purrs, taking her glasses off and leaning into him until her breath was brushing the lobe of his ear. "Say, Suigetsu and Juugo are busy, how about we—"

"Karin."

The redhead scoffs but backs away, putting her glasses back in place and glaring at the Uchiha. Damn him and his single-mindedness. When would he take the hint?

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0. After;

When Karin comes to the bed and takes a seat by his side, Sasuke does not quite know what to expect. He never knew, not when it came to Karin. Maybe that was part of the reason why he kept her around.

"Sasuke, what will you do once you've destroyed Konoha?" she asks after a moment of pondering, never one to let her hesitation get the best of her.

Sasuke is silent. And for a frightening instant, he is almost quite lost.

"I don't know."

Karin must have sensed it in his chakra because she places her hand above his, anchoring him down to reality and guiding him, giving him a sense of direction much in the same way she always did. Maybe that was part of the reason why he kept her around.

"But, don't you have an idea or anything?"

"I don't know, Karin," he repeats, because he does not. There is not really much more to him—to his life—after destroying Konoha. It is his last goal, one he intends to see to its bitter end even if it meant dying.

He knows that much at least, and so he carefully slips his hand from under Karin's and places it back on his lap, out of her reach. The redhead gives it a look but says nothing otherwise, and so Sasuke speaks for her, "I guess I will find out when the time comes."

"We," Karin corrects, and her eyes bore into his in such a way that Sasuke would not have been capable to look away even if he wanted to, "We will find out, Sasuke."

"Right," Sasuke agrees after a moment of silence, and the words are not his because he feels no conviction behind them. Karin knows this; Sasuke sees it in the way her gaze hardens—but Karin remains silent.

And maybe that was part of the reason why he kept her around.

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24. The puppet master ; strings

Karin could see it. Glimpses of it badly concealed in gestures and calculating looks. Gleeful feelings in his chakra that came only as Sasuke sank further and further. During those times, Karin would glare—would narrow her eyes and glare at the masked man with everything she had, but she would be ignored each and every time.

And Sasuke never took notice of it all, like the puppet he had become.

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19. Stay

Silence. It was not easy to spark conversation with the girl you discarded; it was almost as hard as trying to act normally with the guy who tried to kill you.

She probably should not even be there, but her heart was as stubborn as her pride. Still—she takes a look at him, laying down on the hospital bed and looking up at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes, and decides that she had already gotten what she wanted (make sure he was alright) and so

"I guess I will get going," she says and begins to rise from the chair she had positioned by his bed. She has only given a single step forward when a hand shots out and grasps her wrist, effectively stopping her.

"Stay,"

Is all he says.

And Karin does.

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21. The Devil's Advocate

"You know, Karin, Sasuke may not say it because he is an idiot, but that bastard cares about you a lot. He really does," Naruto tells hers one day, so solemnly that Karin almost laughs.

She snorts instead, "I know."

"Huh? Then why…?"

Karin cuts him off, smirking. "The bastard still tried to kill me. I'm not about to let him go off as easily as you did, whiskers."


I love Taka so I couldn't help but to include Suigetsu here. I would have loved to include Juugo too but he did not fit any of the prompts lol

I find these a bit weaker than the previous batch, because these actually were the first ones I wrote. I hope they aren't that bad though.

In case it was not clear in #33, Karin switched their cloaks so that she could keep Sasuke's. Also, #0 is not part of the original prompts.

Anyways, thanks for reading again.